How do I get off the roller coaster

[LARGEJOHN]

I stared playing a month ago with $50.00 at Poker Stars. Lost $30.00 by the second day. Now I go up and down between $25 and $30 can't semm to get past the $30.00 mark. I am playing .10-.05. Will it just take more time to get better.

[Pov]

The roller coaster never ends. When I graph my results over short periods of time it looks pretty crazy - I'd post it but the results are a little personal /images/graemlins/smile.gif - but trust me, one week I can look like a donkey and the next I'll be a genius. One of the major difficulties in playing poker successfully is the large amount of short term variance. It can make it very difficult to determine if you are a winning or a losing player. It is not unreasonable for a slightly winning player to be losing money over tens of thousands of hands - note that it is more likely you're a losing player when this happens, but like I said, not unreasonable that you might actually be a small winner who has been running poorly.

However, I doubt you've played more than a few thousand hands, let alone tens of thousands so your results basically are meaningless. Sorry!

Basically, what you can do is learn a bit about how big normal swings are and make sure you have the bankroll to cover them. Then you just have to play and play and try to analyze your hands for correctness - posting a few you have questions on in the micro-limits forum is your best bet. (you may need to grow a thick skin, but believe me, you will learn) For limit play the axiom is to have 300 big bets. For no limit something like 20 standard buy-ins (I only dabble in NL). So for your $30 bankroll you should be playing .05/.10 limit or lower.

This may sound ridiculous, but it isn't. You can easily lose 50 BB's in no time at all and if you happen to hit a couple of these bad swings between good swings you can be down 150 - 200 BB's, especially if you have a low winrate. As a beginner you are probably a losing player or at best a very marginal winner so your downswings have a good chance of being very ugly.

I have no idea what you should be playing if anything with a $30 bankroll at NL. That's barely one standard buy-in at Party where your risk of ruin would be huge. Are there $1 max buy-in NL games out there? If there aren't, you probably can't risk NL at this point unless you're willing to reload if you bust.

[stlip]

Here's my last two weeks of play at Party 1/2, which happened to end on an upblip, but from the looks of things I'm just going up and down in more or less equal swings and there's no indication I'm going anywhere.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y264/stlip/2weekgraph.jpg

When I'm playing I always remind myself that we kill 'em with patience. Over time if you are playing well you'll get all the opportunities you need, but you cannot rush them.

Here's my last four months of play, which includes that roller coaster to "nowhere" at the very end.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y264/stlip/4monthgraph.jpg

Good luck.

[Wozza]

That's facinating. If any newbie ever posts again about how they are killing it (or being killed) over a couple of thousand hands, they should be immediately directed to this post.

Even though it looks like you're going nowhere in the first instance, looking at the big picture reveals good solid play. You must be pretty pleased with that - I know I would be.

[Pov]

In particular, inexperienced players should note what happens at around hand 6000 or so. Over the course of less than 1000 hands he drops 100 BB's. The first several times this happens to you it feels like poker is conspiring to crush you, you don't have any idea how to play the game and you should quit. This isn't even a particularly bad downswing as he's back over the 300 BB mark within a couple thousand more hands. Swings can easily last longer than this entire graph represents though not usually if you're a big winner as is possible in these low limit games.

Disclaimer: This of course is in no way an excuse for not looking for leaks in your play. Everyone still makes mistakes and the better you play, the more quickly you will recover from a bad run of cards.

[LARGEJOHN]

Thanks for the help thats what I needed LARGE JOHN

[LARGEJOHN]

Thanks I was just getting frustrated but it will take some time. LARGE JOHN

[LARGEJOHN]

Thanks I was becoming frustrated looks like I just need to keep playing LARGE JOHN

[ThaHero]

This post was invaluable to me. Over the last 1500 hands or so I've lost about 120bb. It was about 60 in 300 hands, then I made the 60bb back in 300 hands, then lost the 120 in about 800 hands. WOW! This is the largest swing I've had to endure, but I'm forging ahead. I know I'm a beginner but I'm confident in my ability. Went back and looked over my play, saw some principles in SSH that I misapplied. Hitting the tables tonight, hopefully things go better!

[Bartman387]

Great post!! My last two B&M sessions (10 hours total) I'm down $160 and while I know this is short term, it is hard not to beat myself up thinking of what went wrong. While I identify leaks and spots where I should have made a different move, it is encouraging to be reminded that you need to look long term.